Parishes – Page 3 – Kintbury and Beyond

In search of Christmas past

With Christmas lights in Newbury’s Northbrook Street and shops already decked out for the festive season, even though, at the time of writing this, it is not yet even December, I began to wonder how different Christmas might have been in years gone by.

So I turned once more to the pages of local newspapers, care of the British Newspaper Archive and found, perhaps surprisingly, that it is quite difficult to find much reporting at all specifically relating to Christmas at the end of the nineteenth century.

Throughout the century, it was usual for local shops and businesses to advertise the arrival of new stock by placing small advertisements in the columns of the Newbury Weekly News. With no illustrations and a minimum of text, a shop would announce that, for example, new winter coats or shoes were in stock. In the weeks closest to Christmas, similarly low-key advertisements announced the arrival of Christmas cards and suitable presents.

By the later .years of the century, it seems to have become a thing for the paper to report on the displays of “Christmas meats” in the windows of various butchers’ shops. But of specifically seasonal parties, events or entertainment, I could find very little evidence. Christmas, it seems, was a much lower-key event.

I narrowed my search to reports from Kintbury and neighbouring villages but once again I found very little to distinguish the Christmas season from any other time of the year in respect of the subject matter covered. That is, with a very few exceptions and these are almost all characterised by being reports of how the wealthier principal families were benevolent to the less well off, and how enthusiastically this benevolence was received by the grateful recipients. One imagines there must have been much forelock tugging.

In January 1888, the Newbury Weekly News reported on a tea having been held at the “Big House” (sic), home of Mr & Mrs Cole of West Woodhay. All the children of the parish attended and there followed a “capital display of fireworks” attended by all parishioners. However, the display was, “allowed to pass off without any exhibition of enthusiasm, owing to the indisposition of Mr Cole, for whose speedy recovery every inhabitant of West Woodhay is most desirous”.

No shouts of “Oooh” or “Ahhh” as rockets went up and burst into colours, presumably.

Afterwards the “usual presents of game and coals were again distributed”, about which I would imagine, the grateful villagers were allowed – probably expected – to look enthusiastic.

The Coles were not the only local family of standing in their village to give to the less well off. In Enborne, Mr K. H. Valpy of Enborne Lodge and in Hamstead Marshall, Mr James Bishop of Hamstead Park both “most generously” gave gifts of clothing and coal to the parishioners of their respective villages. Whilst much is made in the NWN’s reporting of the generosity of certain families, the fact that many other people were quite obviously in need of this kind of charitable giving goes unremarked upon. This, of course, is before the days of the welfare state and a time when dire poverty could lead to admittance to the workhouse.

In December 1903, two hundred of the younger children from St Mary’s School, Kintbury and Christ Church School ( between Kintbury and Inkpen) all received “ a printed invitation, enclosed in an envelope” which I think was a rather pleasing touch on the part of Mr and Mrs Whiston of Barrymores, Kintbury. On December 27^th, the children enjoyed a, “bountiful spread” after which there was a, “hearty indulgence” in games. “Handsome presents” were given out from a huge Christmas tree for which the children “showed their gratitude by loud and hearty cheers.”

On Boxing Day, 1907, the children attending Christ Church School were given, “a splendid treat” due to the “kindness of Miss Dunn of Wallingtons.” Following “a good tea” a “fine Christmas tree was lighted up, from which each child received a bag of sweets and toys, besides a very useful present in the shape of a garment.”

Bearing in mind that the “lighting up” of the Christmas tree would have involved candles attached to the branches, I think I would have wanted to stand well back as this would have been a fire hazard. I do like the fact that Miss Dunn gave each child sweets and toys as well as a garment, so her idea of a Christmas gift must have seemed much more interesting the young recipients. Accompanying teachers were all given “something useful” whatever that was, and oranges & sweets were in abundance.

The children heartily cheered Miss Dunn, as, of course, they would have been expected to do so. However, for many children the gift of a toy must have been very welcome, so perhaps the cheering was genuinely heart-felt.

Perhaps, for some better-off villagers, being seen to be charitable was what mattered, to enhance one’s standing in the community. This might not have been the case, but it does make me wonder. According to the NWN of January 1907, a Mr and Miss Hinton had recently taken up residence in the “remote village” of Combe, where they lived at the manor. During Christmas week, the Hintons organised “an unusual treat” in the form of an, “entertainment” which was held at the manor and to which “nearly everyone turned out in the snow”. Most of the entertainment consisted of songs or piano pieces although the audience also enjoyed gramophone selections. For many villagers I expect this would have been the first time they heard recorded music. If there was a Christmas tree, fire works or presents, the Newbury Weekly News report did not mention it.

Reporting styles of the time mean that each account is littered with words such as, “splendid”, “hearty”, “generous” and so on. Social mores of the time meant that poorer villagers were expected to be subservient to the upper or upper middles classes and be appreciative of the charity they bestowed on them. Despite this, however, the Christmas parties, in particular, must have been eagerly anticipated and enjoyed by the children. Gifts of coal, game birds or clothing would have been welcomed by many even if not necessarily living in poverty but on a restricted budget.

I like the sound of Miss Dunn’s party in particular; it seems she took care to give presents that were both practical and fun. Also, it is interesting to note that a legacy of the Dunn family still exists in Kintbury: for well over a hundred years, Mrs Dunn’s Kintbury Charity has given grants to young people of the village.

Illustrations: Public domain, Wikimedia Creative Commons

The Kintbury Martyr: 1

The late 1820s saw riots and demonstations break out in many villages and towns across southern England, including Kintbury. So what had happened to England’s green and pleasant land to cause this?

1830: A time of poverty, resentment and anger

In the early years of the nineteenth century, the industrial revolution was leading to the growth of factories and mills in the rapidly expanding towns of the north and midlands. However, counties in the south of England such as Berkshire remained predominantly agricultural. And it wasn’t just the men who worked the land: many women were employed in agriculture and even children worked on the land rather than receiving an education. As it would be another forty years before the introduction of free education for all, very many poorer people in the earlier years of the nineteenth century had no opportunity to learn to read or write.

A link to the wider world

The Kennet & Avon canal had been completed in 1810 so Kintbury people would have become used to seeing colourful barges pass through the village, manned by the itinerate families of bargees; such sights must have seemed strange and exotic to Kintburians who might never have travelled as far as Newbury. Travel for most was by foot or horse drawn vehicle, although occasionally coaches belonging to the better off would have turned off the Bath Road, down what we now know as the avenue, past the church and south through the village.

Whilst families such as those at Barton Court would have lived in comfort and luxury, home for the average agricultural labourer and his family was a very humble cottage, often little more than two or three rooms, sparsely furnished and lit by tallow candles.

Bread on the table

The war with France had ended some fifteen years previously but the peace had also brought with it a recession. Furthermore, 1830 saw the third poor harvest in succession, putting up the price of wheat and subsequently of bread. This was not good news for the agricultural labourer, whose wages for the year had dropped from £40.00 (15 shillings or 76 pence a week) in 1815 to £31 (12 shillings or 59 pence a week) in 1827.

Labourers in other occupations fared a little better with an average pay of £43 a year (16 shillings or 82p a week ). Meanwhile, colliers in the north and midlands averaged £54 a year (slightly over the lofty sum of £1 a week ) and cotton spinners £58.50 a year (£1 / 2 shillings or £1.10p a week ). It was no wonder that many agricultural workers in the north of England were migrating to the urban areas where work in mills and factories promised higher wages. But no such opportunities existed for the agricultural labourers of the south.

These wages were in stark contrast to the annual incomes of those in authority and positions of power. Whilst a clergyman was not considered wealthy within his class, an annual income of £254 or £4/17shillings a week must have seemed a fortune to the labourer. Meanwhile, far removed in their offices in Newbury or Reading, a solicitor could earn up to £522 a year. But this was a world away from the life of the agricultural labourer.

A restricted diet

So how did the agricultural labourer exist on 12 shillings a week? His family’s diet would have been restricted and unvarying, consisting, for example, of bread, bacon, small amounts of cheese, butter, milk, tea, sugar and salt – all carefully rationed. There might have been small amounts of meat other than bacon and some labourers were able to keep a pig. If the cottage garden was large enough and the soil suitable, vegetables could also be grown at home. Research has suggested that 71% of the family’s income would have been spent on bread alone: not surprising as it would have been a staple and eaten at every meal. The Berkshire Chronicle of April 3^rd 1829 records the latest price for a gallon loaf in Newbury to be between 1 shilling, 7 pence (1/7d) and 1 shilling, 9 pence (1/9d). Prices, however, varied according to the success or otherwise of the harvest each year.

No more rabbit pie

Whilst previous generations of country dwellers would have been able to augment their diets by catching rabbits and fowl on common land, the Enclosure Acts meant that land owners had been able to fence off vast tracts of land over which the labourers had previously been able to walk freely. It also drastically reduced the areas of land available for the poorer classes to cultivate for themselves. Furthermore, the harsh Game Laws resulted in strict penalties for anyone caught poaching. The law of 1816 imposed the penalty of seven years transportation (ie being sent to a penal colony in Australia) for anyone caught with nets to snare a rabbit, even if no rabbit had been trapped. Until 1827 it was perfectly legal for landowners to set mantraps on their land. These devices could, at best, break a man’s leg and at worst cause him a long and lingering death as a result of his injuries.

Keeping the peace

These are the years before the establishment of police forces across the country: Newbury Borough Police was not established until 1835. Instead, law and order were maintained through a system of harsh penalties designed to deter crime and the only way of dealing with more extreme disorder was to call upon the militia. The death penalty existed for over 200 crimes and for others, those convicted could be transported – a system of dealing with convicts, both men and women, until 1868.

In the towns and villages, watchmen and constables were responsible for keeping the peace and those arrested were taken before the local magistrates. These local magistrates, or Justices of the Peace, represented the face of the establishment for the villagers, and it was their business to uphold the laws enacted by parliament. In 1830, the Houses of Parliament might as well have been on the moon to the working people of England, most of whom were not able to vote until the early years of the twentieth century. One of Berkshire’s two MPs at the time, Charles Dundas, 1^st Baron Amesbury, lived at Barton Court, Kintbury. The wealthier villagers, particularly the very few men who were at that time able to vote, might have felt that Dundas represented their interests. This sentiment would not have been shared by the poorer working people.

The Rev Fulwar Craven Fowle

Whilst many villagers might well have been unfamiliar with Charles Dundas other than by name and as the owner of the large and comfortable house along the avenue on the way to the Bath Road, they would have been much more familiar with the local magistrate. The Rev Fulwar Craven Fowle was vicar of Kintbury, the third generation of his family to hold the living. He was also the grandson of Lord “Governor” Craven, sometime governor of South Carolina and previous resident of Hamstead Park. Thus, Rev Fowle was several rungs up the social ladder from the labourers at the very bottom, inhabiting a world far distant from theirs. We know from the letters of Jane Austen – a family friend of the Fowles – that Fulwar Craven Fowle could be bad tempered although there is evidence that he was much loved by his parishioners. Many of the village labourers, however, may very well not have belonged to the Anglican church and are likely to have been members of one of the non-conformist churches (or chapels) and so would not have known Rev Fowle as their priest, but as a magistrate and as a member of one of the better-off village families.

Thus Rev Fowle represented the face of an establishment which had introduced harsh and punitive laws, a system which had reduced the labourer to a life of poverty from which there was no chance of escape.

Representing the people

Charles Dundas, Baron Amesbury

by William Say, after Sir William Beechey
mezzotint, (1823)
NPG D11326

In 1830, only around 5% of the people were eligible to vote and, with the exception of a few women living in some towns, those who could vote were all men. There was much political corruption and some constituencies were always represented by certain, influential families. In Berkshire, Abingdon (then in Berkshire) returned one member of parliament, Reading two and Wallingford (also in Berkshire at that time), also returned two MPs. The rest of Berkshire – which then stretched as far north as the Thames –was represented in total by just two MPs. In 1830, these were Robert Palmer and the resident of Barton Court, Kintbury, Charles Dundas. Over the border to the west, Great Bedwyn, smaller than Hungerford, returned two MPs, and further south in Wiltshire, Old Sarum – a place with no inhabitants at all, continued to send two MPs to Westminster.

So whilst Members of Parliament were responsible for passing the laws which severely restricted the lives of the working people, causing much hardship, those MPs were answerable to very few. And those who could vote lived their lives pretty much untouched by the kind of challenges afflicting the poor.

Know your place

There existed a very clearly defined class system in England at this time. At the top of the social ladder were the nobility such as William Lamb, 2^nd Viscount Melbourne, the Home Secretary in 1830. Letters addressed to him begin, “My Lord…”.

Further down the social ladder, but still a long way from the bottom, those of the landowning classes who did not have titles have “Esq” – short for “esquire”- after their names whilst those on the next rung down are referred to as “Gentlemen”.

Newspaper reports of this time often refer to “gentlemen and farmers”, because a farmer was not necessarily also a “gentleman”. However, the farmer was several rungs above the labourers who worked for him. These labourers are not even afforded the title, “Mr” and in some reports are referred to as “the peasantry”.

The popular hymn, “All things bright and beautiful”, published in 1848, originally included the verse which read:

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them high and lowly,
And ordered their estate.

Campaigning for change.

It is not surprising that there was, throughout England, a growing movement advocating reform. However, many who could remember the events of the French Revolution of the 1790s, which had seen the overthrow of the monarchy and the execution of many members of the upper classes, continued to fear that something similar would happen in England. Demands such as the right for everyone to vote, equal rights before the law or the abolition of child labour – all of which seemed perfectly reasonable to many – were regarded by some members of the establishment as a threat to their way of life and a slippery slope towards a repeat in England of what had happened in France.

By contrast, the events in France had inspired others to advocate reform of parliament and the law. One such was the wealthy farmer from Wiltshire, Henry Hunt, an inspirational speaker who had been given the nick-name “Orator” Hunt. In 1819, he had been invited to speak at a rally in Manchester which was attended by a crowd of around 60,000 people. Fearful of the effect one of Hunt’s rousing speeches would have upon the crowd, the local magistrates panicked and sent in the militia, who were armed with sabres. In the resulting massacre, up to fifteen people are believed to have been killed and hundreds injured.

Another radical thinker of the period was William Cobbett, the son of a farmer from Surrey who had become involved in political debate and the need for parliamentary reform. Cobbett was also a journalist and as well as essays and letters he published a weekly newspaper called The Political Register which soon became popular amongst the poorer classes. Not everyone was able to read Cobbett’s newspaper for themselves but it is likely that those lucky enough to be literate would have read aloud to others and so the views expressed were shared more widely than the circulation of the paper copies.

William Cobbett

possibly by George Cooke
oil on canvas, circa 1831
NPG 1549

It is very likely that that copies of The Political Register would have been shared or read aloud, perhaps in the public houses or other meeting places, around Hungerford or Kintbury such that the poor and oppressed rural labourers became aware of those who had already set out to challenge the status quo.

The Threshing Machine

The Threshing Machine , William Wilson © Estate of William Wilson OBE RSA

National Gallery of Scotland

Threshing is the process of separating the grains of wheat from the chaff. Before the introduction of threshing machines, this was a very labour intensive process done by hand using a flail. Threshing took place in the autumn after the harvest had been brought in and provided employment for hard-pressed agricultural labourers at a time in the year when there was very little other farm work available. At a time when wages were lower than ever and the price of bread increasing, what the farm labourer could earn by threshing helped to keep him and his family throughout the bleakest part of the winter.

Threshing machines required very few labourers to operate them so their introduction meant the loss of work for many men. And loss of work at such a crucial time meant, for many, the fear of starvation throughout the winter months.

Many agricultural workers literally feared for their lives.

Bibliography

Griffin, Emma, (2018), Diets, hunger & living standards during the British industrial revolution, Past & Present.

Lindert & Williamson, (1983), English workers living standards in the industrial revolution, The Economic History Review

Phillips, Daphne (1993), Berkshire: A County history, Newbury: Countryside Books

Thompson, David (1969), England in the nineteenth century, Pelican

Trevelyan, G.M.(1960) Illustrated English Social History:4, Pelican

Woodward, Sir Llewellyn (1962), The Age of Reform, Oxford: OUP

Theresa A. Lock, Kintbury, October 17^th, 2020.

Ring out those bells

“Treble’s going. She’s gone!”

Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887 was celebrated with festivities in villages across Britain and the villages in our area were no exception. The village was decorated with bunting the like of which had not been seen before and a peal of bells was commenced at 5 am. Tough on anybody living in Church Street hoping to sleep in until 6 o’clock!

There has been a long tradition of ringing of church bells at times of national celebration as well as to indicate a church service is about to start or a wedding has taken place. A muffled peal, when one side of each clapper is fitted with a leather muffler so that every other round sounds like an echo, is customary for funerals or commemorative services and also to “ring out” the old year.

Recently, there was a concerted effort to ring in as many towers as possible to celebrate the Coronation of King Charles III.

However, the bells of St Mary’s, Kintbury, have rung out many times before.

Back in the eighteenth century, parish records state that between the years 1746 and 1775, ringers were paid for four “Ringing Days” in addition to the usual Sundays. The ringers were paid £1 4s 0d which would have been a princely compared to the labourers’ weekly wage at that time.

It would be interesting to know who financed this? Would it have been the vicar, Rev Thomas Fowle or maybe one of his affluent Craven relatives?

1746 had three Ringing Days the dates of which were: 5th November – Guy Fawkes; 29th May – Restoration of King Charles; and 11th June (?)

It can be assumed that the fourth one was instituted to mark the final defeat of the Jacobites in the ‘45 Rebellion.

These Ringing Days occur regularly until 1782 and restart in 1806 with only two.

The many military victories were not mentioned but in 1788 they were rung for a Rejoicing Day – the King’s recovery from his first bout on insanity.

For a time during World War II, bell ringing was prohibited by the government because the bells were to be used to alert people in towns and villages if an invasion had occurred. The bells were, of course, rung again to celebrate the end of war!

Penny Fletcher, November 2023

Whiting, bricks and Jane Austen’s stockings

As in many other villages in the nineteenth century, many Kintburians of the time were employed either in agriculture or other associated rural crafts. However, the position of the village between the chalk of the North Wessex downs and the clays of the Kennet valley gave rise to two other industries which have long since disappeared.

Chalk is a naturally occurring commodity hereabouts and it provided the raw material for the whiting industry. Excavated at various locations around the village – nineteenth century maps show several “chalk pits” now mostly filled in and long forgotten – the chalk would be crushed in specially adapted mills and mixed with water to produce whiting. The finished product had a variety of uses including bleaching ships’ sails, mixed with linseed oil to produce builders’ putty and more locally, to whitewash walls.

In 1862 there were five manufactories of whiting in Kintbury, one of which was making 600 tons of whiting per annum. Remains of what is believed to be an edge runner mill used in the preparation of the chalk can still be seen beneath the undergrowth on Irish Hill, just to the east of Kintbury. Another whiting works was situated close to a chalk pit in Laylands Green, just to the south of the village, and a third was situated on land belonging to Barton Court.

By 1905 there was just one whiting manufactory left: the Kintbury Whiting Company, which operated in the village until the 1930s.

Whilst some chalk was extracted using open cast methods and so leaving pits which, at a later date, required in filling, it was also mined. This method left cavernous underground caves as the photo on the Geological Society website shows:

http://www.ukgeohazards.info/pages/eng_geol/subsidence_geohazard/eng_geol_subsidence_chalk.htm

As it is very soft, chalk is not a good building material. There are very few stone walls around Kintbury although there is natural flint in some older buildings. It is not surprising, therefore, that brick making was an important industry in Kintbury until the early years of the twentieth century, utilizing clay extracted from various locations around the village.

The last known brick maker in Kintbury was George Thomas Killick whose brickworks were in Laylands Green. Some examples of Killick’s bricks can still be seen around the village, set into relatively modern walls and placed so that the “GTK KINTBURY” can be displayed. It is thought that these examples might have originally been made for advertising purposes rather than for use in bricklaying.

One lasting legacy of Kintbury’s industrial past is what is now Kintbury Newt Ponds Nature Reserve. The ponds are the result of industrial excavations, long since water-filled and colonised by three types of newt: smooth, palmate and great crested. As the great crested newt has statutory protection the site of their habitat cannot be built on. Today it is a nature reserve under the protection of the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust.

https://www.bbowt.org.uk/nature-reserves/kintbury-newt-ponds

A very different industry to either making bricks or whiting is the manufacture of silk. A naturally produced fibre obtained from the silk moth, it can be woven into a delicate fabric much more frequently used for a variety of garments and accessories in years gone by. The volume 4 of the Berkshire editions of the Victoria County Histories (London, 1924) says that there was a silk mill in Kintbury in the early nineteenth century. Unfortunately, there is no record of where, exactly, it was situated although it may well have been near to, or on the site of, the former mill ( now converted to apartments ) close to the station.

Very little is known about silk production in Kintbury. The census of 1841 – the first to record names and occupations – lists just one person in Kintbury whose occupation mentions employment in silk manufacture: eighteen year old Luisa Shuttle is listed as being a “silk winder”. By 1851, no one, it seems, was employed at the silk mill.

Tantalizingly, there is a fleeting reference to silk, with association to Kintbury, in one of Jane Austen’s letters of 1796. Writing to her sister Cassandra who was then staying with the Fowle family at the vicarage, Jane says,

“You say nothing of the silk stockings; I flatter myself, therefore, that Charles has not purchased any, as I can not very well pay for them; all my money is spent in buying white gloves and pink persian.”

It is likely that Jane is sharing something of a joke with Cassandra and we will, of course, never know its full context. However, it seems clear that Charles Fowle, son of Rev Thomas Fowle, with whom Cassandra was staying, had at some point been asked to purchase silk stockings for Jane and that it has to be extremely likely that this was because they would be produced in Kintbury.

Sources:

https://new.millsarchive.org

https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/gateway

Berkshire Chronicle (online at www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk)

“Chalk links in North Wessex Downs” https://www.northwessexdowns.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ChalkLinks_Racing.pdf

Ancestry.co.uk

Elizabeth Caroline Fowle: A story of good intentions thwarted

Elizabeth Caroline Fowle, known to her family as Caroline and born in Kintbury, 1798, was the 4th child and second daughter born to Rev Fulwar Craven Fowle, the vicar of Kintbury, and his wife Eliza.

Caroline’s elder sister, Mary Jane, had been born in 1792, and her younger sister, Isabella, in 1799.

Caroline’s grandfather had been the sometime governor of South Carolina, Charles Craven of Hamstead Park, and his wife Elizabeth. Lord Craven of Hamstead Marshall was a cousin of her father’s. As the daughter of the vicarage, however, it is likely that Caroline did not enjoy such a lavish or opulent lifestyle despite her family’s lineage.

Caroline was baptised in Kintbury on January 19^th 1798 by the Rev James Austen, brother to Jane and Cassandra Austen. James and Fulwar had been friends since their boyhood when Fulwar had been a pupil at the school run by James’s father, Rev George Austen, at Steventon in Hampshire.

Growing up in Kintbury, Caroline would have met other members of the Austen family when they came to stay at the vicarage, as well as Jane Austen’s lifelong friend, Martha Lloyd, who was also Caroline’s aunt, being her mother’s sister. Cassandra Austen, Jane’s sister, had become engaged to Caroline’s uncle Tom but sadly he had died in 1797 before they could marry.

We know very little about Caroline’s life growing up. In 1801, Jane Austen wrote to Cassandra that Caroline “is improved in her person; I think her now a really pretty child. She is still very shy & does not talk much.”

In April 1827, Mary Jane Fowle married Lieutenant Christopher Dexter, travelling with him to India. Unfortunately he died in Madras in 1834 so Mary Jane returned to Kintbury alone.

Isabella married John Lidderdale, the local general practitioner in 1845 and continued to live in Kintbury.

Caroline never married. On the 1841 census she is recorded as living alone and described as a gentlewoman. When Cassandra Austen died in 1845, she left £1000 to Caroline in her will. As it happens, this was the very same amount left to Cassandra in the will of Thomas Fowle, Caroline’s uncle. Cassandra also left to Caroline a large Indian shawl which had once belonged to Mrs Jane Fowle, Caroline’s grandmother. Quite why Caroline was the only sister to benefit from Cassandra’s will, we do not know.

At the time of the 1851 census, Caroline was living at the house known as Barrymores, off the Inkpen Road. The census shows that she had two live-in servants and was described as being of “independent means” both of which suggest that Caroline was relatively well -off.

A copy of Caroline’s will, now in the Berkshire Records Office shows that she wished Kintbury villagers as well as family members to benefit from her legacies. She wanted her money to pay for a school room, with a garden or playground, to be built or purchased for village children. There was to be a new organ for the church and various family members including her nieces and nephews were also to benefit.

Sadly, most of Caroline’s good intentions came to nothing. A problem arose for her executors and the Solicitor General had to be consulted because, “she had been of unsound mind about six months before her death and had been placed in a (indistinct) expensive private Lunatic Establishment.” As a result, “ the expenses of her maintenance exceeded the amount of her income so that her friends were obliged to make considerable ( indistinct ) out of their own monies to meet the demands of the establishment in the removal of her body for internment”.

The establishment at which Caroline died was Otto House in Kensington – a long way from the village in which she had spent all her life. We have no way of knowing exactly what had been the cause of her being “of unsound mind”; this might have been a form of dementia or any other mental health condition which, it is very likely, would have been poorly understood when Caroline died in 1860.

Furthermore, we have no idea why Caroline had been sent to Otto House. Perhaps, John Lidderdale, Kintbury’s GP and Caroline’s brother-in-law, believed it to be the best place for her oven though there must have been establishments nearer.

Mary Jane Dexter continued to live in Kintbury until her death in 1883. At the time of her death she was living with her widowed sister, Isabella Lidderdale. Isabella died in 1885. All three sisters are buried in Kintbury.

It is an interesting thought that Mary Jane, Caroline and Isabella would have been three of the last people in Kintbury to have known Jane Austen in person, to have been able to say, “Yes, we knew her, she was a good friend of our parents”.

Sources and references:

Jane Austen’s Letters. Collected and Edited by Deirdre Le Faye. 1995

Copy of the Will of Elizabeth Caroline Fowle, Berkshire Records Office

Ancestry

Say, ‘Hello’ to Marilyn

I have a vague memory from school geography lessons of being told that, if you draw a line which passes through the Bristol Channel in the south west and the Wash in the north east, everything above the line will, more or less, be in “upland Britain”, whilst everything below will be “lowland Britain”.

Staring at my Philips’ School Atlas and the page showing “British Isles – Political” this distinction did not seem quite right. A line drawn from Bristol to the Wash would leave much of Lincolnshire, a county with a reputation for flatness, in the “upland” sector, whilst much of Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds in the “lowland” half.

Perhaps I’d just got my line in the wrong place. However, it is indisputable that there are more uplands to the north and west. In Scotland, for example, mountains over 3000 feet or 914.4 meters are called Monros and there is a total of 282 of them. There is no way we in the south can compete with that. Climbers who complete all 282 earn the right to call themselves “Monroists” and join the Monro Society.

Down here in Wessex we might not be able to boast any mountains but that is not to say that our landscape is particularly flat. Not all of it, anyway.

A while ago, while researching something about hills in chalk downlands, I came across the term “Marilyns”. I thought this was a joke. So, if Scottish mountains are known as “Monros”, some wag decided to call certain hills, “Marilyns” after Marilyn Monroe” – get it?

But “Marilyns” are not a joke, although there is a certain humour in calling them that. The classification was first coined in 1992 by Alan Dawson in his book, “The Relative Hills of Britain” and refers to UK hills and mountains:

…with a prominence of 150m or more regardless of height.

Or to put it another way:

A Marilyn is a hill of any height with a drop of 150m or more on all sides.
Alan Dawson

And so our “local” hill, Walbury Hill is a Marilyn. Although it rises 974 feet above sea level, it is its prominence of 188m or 617 feet above the surrounding hills which is its qualifying factor. Neighbouring Marilyns are Butser Hill in Hampshire at 158m or 518 feet and Winn Hill in Wilshire at 159m or 522 feet.

There are 174 Marilyns in England and a total of 1556 throughout the UK where Walbury Hill comes in at number 107. Perhaps not much of a distinction for a hill that was once classified as a mountain by the Ordnance Survey in the nineteenth century. But we can still boast that our local Marilyn is the highest point in chalk in southern England!

Theresa Lock, November 2023

Sources including:

rhoc.uk/marilyns/

hill-bagging.co.uk/Marilyns.php

The canal comes to Kintbury and beyond

It is difficult to imagine Kintbury without the canal; today the Kennet and Avon has become part of the natural landscape as much as the streams of the Kennet and the surrounding meadows. However, it was not always so.

The very first canal to be built in England was the Bridgewater Canal, constructed in 1761 to carry coal from the Duke of Bridgewater’s coal mines to the newly industrialised Manchester. Over the next 70 years, many more followed, not as an amenity to facilitate leisure activities as we may think of canals today, but as part of the industrial revolution. Canals were, at the time, the easiest and cheapest way to transport heavy materials for distribution from source to work shop or factory.

Business owners, landed gentry and the like would have followed the progress of the canal network and the economic advantages it brought to each area. In March 1788, a meeting was held in Hungerford “to consider the Utility of an Extension of the Navigable River from Newbury to Hungerford as far further as shall hereafter be thought eligible.”

Obviously, the proposed canal was going nowhere without the co-operation of other landowners; not surprisingly, the idea was sold to them by insisting that a subsequent reduction in the price of the carriage of coals and other heavy materials would significantly advantage their estates.

The landowners, it seems, were easily won over and in its edition of October 14^th 1793, the Reading Mercury published the following:

“Notice is hereby given, That application is intended to be made to Parliament in the next session, for leave to bring in a Bill and to obtain an Act for making and maintaining a navigable canal and communications for Boats, Barges and other Vehicles… from the River Kennet at or near the town of Newbury … to the River Avon at or near the City of Bath.“

We are so used to the presence of the canal today that it is easy to forget this proposal and its impact in its day must have been very similar to the decision in the late 1960s that the new M4 motorway should be built across the Berkshire Downs.

The first chairman of the Kennet & Avon Canal Company was to be Charles Dundas Esq., MP for Berkshire since 1794. He lived at Barton Court, near Kintbury.

The engineer to be responsible for the new canal was the relatively inexperienced young Scotsman, John Rennie. However, very few people had actually built canals at this time so new skills had to be learnt and adapted from the experience of military engineers.

There were, of course, no mechanical diggers, earth movers or any other high tech equipment available to Rennie and his workforce. The 40 feet wide and 5 feet deep canal was dug entirely by men using picks, shovels and wheelbarrows. The men – known as “navvies”, a shortened form of “navigators” – were mostly recruited from agricultural workers who could earn much more working on the canal than they had been able to on the land. Unfortunately, though perhaps not surprisingly, gangs of young men, most probably living away from their homes and families for the duration, often turned to drinking and drunken, disruptive behaviour became a feature of the navvies’ life style.

As it passed just to the north of Kintbury, the canal avoided most of the village although one notable exception was the vicarage. At that time, this was the much older house that predated the 1860 Victorian gothic building and was the one known to Cassandra & Jane Austen. We know that various members of the Austen family would have stayed with the Fowle family at the vicarage during the years of the canal’s construction or just after and I cannot help but wonder what Jane would have thought of all the earth moving and construction work being carried on just yards from the house.

In June 1797, the eastern end of the Kennet & Avon canal opened from Newbury to Kintbury. The Reading Mercury reported,

“A barge of near 60 tons having on board the band of the 15th Regiment of Dragoons left Newbury at twelve o’clock and arrived at Kintbury at half past two where the Committee of Management, having dined with their chairman, Charles Dundas, Esq., embarked at six.”

Kintbury had entered the canal age. A wharf was built opposite the Red Lion (now the Dundas Arms) to facilitate the transport by barge rather than the slower carriers’ cart and this benefitted local businesses such as the whiting industry. This was the march of progress and the future was to be horse-drawn and afloat.

But that, of course, was before the railway!

References:

Reading Mercury (britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk)

The Kennet & Avon Canal Trust ( katrust.org.uk)

The Waterways Trust (thewaterwaystrust.org.uk)

Hungerford Virtual Museum (hungerfordvirtualmuseum.co.uk)

How violence at a football match led to accusations of witchcraft

If the events of 1598 are anything to go by, football violence is nothing new!

One of the oldest monuments in St Mary’s church, Kintbury is a brass situated to the right of the altar commemorating John and Alice Gunter. John died in 1598 and according to the inscription on the brass, there is a similar monument in Sisister ( the old name for Cirencester in Gloucestershire ) where Alice died.

For all we know, John and Alice lived a quiet life when they were in Kintbury. However, the same cannot be said for other family members who achieved a certain notoriety during their lifetime.

Anne Gunter, the youngest child of Brian Gunter, had been baptised in Hungerford in 1584. By 1598, Brian was lay rector at North Moreton, in the Vale of the White Horse.

There are several versions of what happened next but the main events of the story go something like this:

Some time in 1598, a football match was held in North Moreton. Back then, the sport did not enjoy the rules or regulations that we have today – a match could involve any number of people and take place over a very wide area, not a specified pitch. However, one aspect we are still familiar with today was the occasional outbreak of associated violence. It seems that, during the game, two brothers, John and Richard Gregory, along with Brian Gunter’s son, William, were involved in some sort of fight. Brian Gunter intervened, hitting Richard and John with the pommel of a dagger. As a result of the injuries caused by this, both brothers died.

Not surprisingly, the deaths of the brothers resulted in animosity between the Gregory and Gunter families. When Anne Gunter became ill in 1604 and then again the following year, Brian Gunter tried to blame Elizabeth Gregory along with Agnes Pepwell and her daughter Mary for causing Anne’s illness. This was, of course, at a time when many people believed in witches and witchcraft and it was not uncommon for certain women to be blamed when unexplained illnesses or deaths occurred in a village.

The wide range of symptoms which Anne was experiencing, including vomiting and fits, Brian Gunter maintained, were the result of her being bewitched. It is more likely, however, that these symptoms were the result of the toxic mixture including wine and salad oil which he had made his daughter drink.

Elizabeth Gregory and Mary Pepwell were tried for witchcraft at Abingdon in 1605. They were found not guilty.

Brian Gunter was not happy with this verdict and managed to take his grievance to the king, James I. James referred the case to the Archbishop of Canterbury who in turn referred it to Samuel Harsnett, an Anglican cleric who was later to become the Archbishop of York and someone known to be skeptical about the popular belief in witchcraft. The case was eventually heard in the Star Chamber, a court of appeal that sat in the Palace of Westminster.

When she was cross questioned, Anne admitted that her illness had been faked and that her father had persuaded her to play out the deception. It is thought that she was eventually acquitted since she had been coerced into cooperating with her father’s plot to discredit the Gregory family.

It is possible that Harsnett and other members of the church became involved in this case, taking it to the higher court, as they wanted to see an end to those profiting from exorcisms in which non existing “daemons” were “driven out” of gullible victims.

Kintbury Women’s Institute in the 1930s

The Women’s Institute is a community based organisation for women which originated in Canada in 1897. By the 1930s branches had been formed throughout Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Penny Fletcher’s perusal of Kintbury W.I. minutes through the 1930s reveals a world of thrift, a need for economy and an enthusiasm for self-help.

On Friday 9^th May, 1930, a meeting was held in the Coronation Hall to consider forming a Women’s Institute in Kintbury. Mrs Clifton-Browne, wife of the sitting MP, addressed the 56 women present and afterwards it was decided to form a branch of the W.I. in Kintbury.

The first meeting took place in the Coronation Hall on 11^th June, at 2.30pm. Eighty-four ladies joined and enjoyed a most helpful demonstration of ‘Fruit Bottling’. Stalls and Entertainment Committees were formed, and 3d was to be charged for tea. There was to be a minimum age of 16 and women from Hamstead Marshall would be eligible to join.

The K.W.I. was in business.

At the second meeting thirty-six new members joined bringing the total membership to one hundred and thirty. These pioneers were treated to a talk on “Myths and Legends of Trees and Flowers”. Members were hesitant, through either shyness or modesty, as to whether they would enter for a Handicraft Exhibition.

It was proposed and seconded that the Coronation Hall caretaker be given 1/6 (12.5p) each meeting for carrying water for tea and that she should charge for laundering tablecloths and tea towels etc. The pattern was established for one afternoon meeting and one evening.

In August, the meeting was held at Hungerford Park, home of the President, Mrs. Turner. One hundred members attended. Mrs. Toynbee was due to speak on “Health” but she arrived too late so “various competitions and amusements” were indulged in and a very happy time was had by all. It was past 7.00pm when the Hungerford Band played ‘God Save the King’ and members returned by coach having had a “real good time”.

The September meeting had a good attendance. Members suggested that in future speakers should stand on the platform the better to be heard at the back of the hall. There were also requests for talks on herbs, classes on First Aid, Home Nursing, Glove Making, Dressmaking and Cookery. The business at this September meeting was followed by a talk on, “Travel in The Sahara”, two violin solos from Mrs. Thomas and community singing. “Musical parcels” caused much merriment.

The glove making classes were started as requested and during the rest of this first year there were also talks on Dressmaking and The League of Nations.

However an attempt to practise for a community singing competition was not successful as the hall was too dark owing to the electric light being cut off. There was, however, a Round Table Conference on Dental Treatment.

In January 1931 the Hall Committee raised the rent to 5/- (25p ) for monthly meetings and 2/- (10p) for committee meetings. The January and February meetings were held in the afternoon because of the weather but it was impossible to carry out the January programme because the electricity was cut off again. In February, the bad weather kept the attendance down to sixty.

The Institute now settled into a regular pattern. The lectures included a speaker from the blind veterans’ society, St. Dunstan’s. He was described in the minutes as a, “brave and interesting man”, who was listened to attentively. Other talks covered a variety of topics including health, soft slipper making and sweet making.

Competitions included: the best ironed cotton garment, pegging clothes onto a line in a given time (the winning time 2 minutes 10 seconds), and a workman’s dinner made for a maximum of 6d (2.5p).

In December a Round Table Conference was held on “My Best Cold Remedy” and “My Pet Economy”. Finance was clearly a pressing issue at this time and the members had already decided to postpone the purchase of a tea trolley to save money. Also in that month a letter was received from H.Q. urging members to “Buy British Goods” to help the country in this “time of crisis”.

1932 opened with a lecture “From Plantation to Tea Pot” by a Lyon’s representative with lantern slides of Indian tea estates and the tour of the London factory by The Prince of Wales.

During 1932 other talks were given on The History of Kintbury by Mrs Mabel Bowen and Mrs. Turner’s visit to India. The lantern slides which accompanied these lectures were always shown by Mr. Chislett. The social time held such delights as card games, gramophone records and sketches. After a discussion as to whether the W.I. should contribute towards a new piano for the hall, it was decided on the advice of the Treasurer that money should not be given because there was a need for greater economy.

The weather was very cold and showery in February 1932. Each year W.I. members bought bulbs in the autumn and in the spring the resulting blooms were judged by the gardener at Barton Court, by kind permission of Colonel Lawson.

1932 saw Inkpen W.I. performing a “Tableux –scenes from eight countries” and the printing of Mrs. Bowen’s “History of Kintbury and The Great Bell”, which cost £1.10/- (£1.50p) Copies sold at 6d (2.5p). Fifteen copies of “The County Cookery Book, From Hand to Mouth” were sold.

It was suggested that a Jumble Sale be held to finance a charabanc (an open topped coach) outing to Bournemouth but so many jumble sales were being held that it had to be a Whist Drive. It was also proposed to form a Croquet Club but it was impossible to find a ground and would have entailed expenditure.

The 1932 Christmas party made a profit of £2-4s-2d ( £2- 21p) which was given to the Nursing Association.

During 1933, talks were given on re-modelling hats, home dying, a nature talk with slides, and herbs and their value –this given by a medical herbalist. The inevitable travelogue for 1933 was on Japan. Miss Johnson demonstrated “the best use of an old macintosh”. Competitions included: packing a parcel in a given time; refooting stockings; a woman’s dress for 4/-(20p) and a child’s for 2/- (10p) and reseating boys’ knickers! Members sang, danced and produced sketches.

Classes in hat making were started and members agreed to help at Newbury Market Stall each month. A charabanc outing to Bognor was arranged for 6^th July, fare 5/- (25p) ,children under five-free. A Baby Show was organized and Mrs. Frances Belk and her pupils gave an exhibition of dancing.

The year ended with the Social Services League asking members to help by sending materials or attending working sessions. By February, 1934, The Social Services Working Party had sent 550 garments to Reading and Gateshead and were working on a community blanket.

The W.I. members willingly agreed to help in a combined effort to pay off the hall debt for heating. Controversy arose regarding the giving of prizes for competitions and the President urged the awarding of marks instead

In March 1934 the meeting had to be abandoned due to bad weather –only 35 members attended.

Folk Dancing was rather popular especially after the meeting in May, when eight members of the English Folk Dance and Song Society gave a talk and demonstration. The Girl Guides attended and the minutes called it “a merry meeting”.

The most interesting talks of the year were “What Countrywomen of the World are Doing”; ”The Handy Woman” with many useful tips for safety, mending and comforts for the home; and an inspiring talk by Mrs. Norman May on ”Our Institute” when apparently her remark about ‘broody hens’ caused much amusement.

In October a handicraft and produce exhibition was held and opened to the public. There were 232 entries and the Thrift Cradle was offered to Savernake Hospital, Marlborough.

The year ended with members bringing their children to a Punch and Judy Show which was much enjoyed by young and old.

1935 opened with yet another travelogue, this time by a Mrs. Seymour who had moved to Kintbury and had been to Fiji. Economy was still clearly very much an issue as the competition was for something new produced from something old. First prize went to a child’s pullover, skirt and knickers; and second to a coatee, dress and bonnet produced from a lady’s blouse.

Mrs. Bowen urged members to make the meetings more enjoyable socially.

In April ideas for the Jubilee celebrations were discussed and a tea for 300 children was decided upon. The resulting event was a great success.

A talk on birds to which husbands and friends were invited was pronounced one of the most enjoyable talks ever –this truly voiced the opinion of all present, apparently.

Mrs. Clifton-Browne gave a “useful” talk on “Using our wits to use our bits” which appeared to be many practical garments from women’s underwear. She also gave the W.I. a “jolly social half an hour by introducing new games”. It is to be hoped Mabel Bowen appreciated this.

In July, the Flower Show was cancelled due to lack of exhibits and Shefford Woodlands were congratulated upon winning the ‘Sun-Ray Diagram’- whatever that was!

In September Lady Glyn talked on “Clinics and Physical Training”. After demonstrating exercises she spoke of their value to all women whether busy mothers or women of leisure. After this invigorating talk members were soothed by Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Johnson playing the harp and piano.

October produced a very wet afternoon and late arrivals. They came to hear Inspector Taggart of The Women’s Auxillary Service talk on Women Police and their work. She stressed that they exist mainly to assist in cases concerning women, girls and children. There was also a short address from a W.I. visitor from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

1936 opened with the death of the King on 20^th January. A subscription was sent towards a wreath that had been sent to Windsor.

The year’s travel talks took place in March and July and were on Mallorca and Sweden. A request for a lower rental for the hall was met with a reply from Mr. Killick that he regretted all the committee could do was to allow the W.I. to have 11 meetings for £5 instead of £5-10s.

Mrs. Baring asked for help as she was having “some poor persons from London” to spend time in her garden. In July she gave particulars of the treat that she intended to give these “poor” Londoners.

The summer outing to Brighton was to cost 7/6 (37.5p) and there was a competition for “Six conditions to help promote’ happy and healthy motherhood.”

A “Bring & Buy” sale raised £1 – 12s -9d ( £1-62p ) to go towards the extension to Newbury Hospital.

The Newbury Agricultural Show was held at Elcot Park in September of this year and Inkpen and Kintbury joined forces to visit it and run a stall.

At the Annual Meeting it was decided to form a choir and Mrs. Turner appealed for small gifts for Kintbury inmates of the Hungerford Institution ( the workhouse ) and toys for the Personal Service League. Both these appeals received a very good response. It was also decided that in the event of a member dying, they would give one dozen red roses with a sprig of rosemary, tied with a green ribbon.

Social half hours consisted this year of folk dancing, whist drives, old time choruses and table games.

The year ended with “character songs” – a jolly effort judged by Major Fleetwood – and a mime entitled “The Tale of a Royal Vest” which ended amidst enthusiastic applause.

The 1936 Children’s Party, which had been postponed because of the King’s death, had now been postponed again because, “there was so much illness about”.

The Great Western Railway Co sent slides of Lorna Doone and Westward Ho country for which Mr. Chislett, as always, lent his lantern and showed the slides. In the following month of March he again assisted Colonel Johnson Smith with his lantern lecture on East Africa. This last was followed by country dancing by the Kintbury Team – and they well deserved the hearty clap accorded to them.

In April, Mrs. Bowen, as a representative for The Preservation of Rural England, asked to be informed of the destruction of wild flowers and other such damage. Rural England must have been the topic of the year for the May talk was on trees and later in the year members were asked to “collect sheep’s wool from hedgerows for making a co-operative patchwork quilt.”

In June a photograph was shown of the W.I. decorated wagon for the Coronation Day procession. Mrs. Baxendale then asked if anyone was interested in a trip to Paris – but no one was. October produced a most inspiring lecture by Mrs Coslett on “How to Turn Ourselves into what We Want to Be” after which the audience left no doubt as to their appreciation by the applause accorded her.

Social half hours and competitions included: home made buttons, dressing a model in a sheet, a smelling competition (?), hats from crinkly paper and pins –this last was popular and twelve artistic models were displayed. In October it was remarked that too many whist drives were being held in the village. The year ended with Miss. K. Weatherby singing carols and giving a brief description of the age and origin of each. A small choir of W.I. members rendered the Grasmere Carol.

1938 opened with members offering to work on a banner. Afternoon meetings were changed from 2.30pm to 2.45pm and the Keep Fit Classes were postponed until the autumn due to the difficulty in obtaining an instructor.

February brought forth a discussion on the advantages of a drainage scheme and this was followed in April by a Mr. Raine from Hungerford who gave a short talk on the possibilities of a drainage scheme in Kintbury.

In March the ever hopeful Mrs. Baxendale asked for names for a trip to Holland.

A Whist Drive was successful enough to raise £4-9s-6d (£4 – 47.5p) for the outing and it was decided to go to the Zoo. The cost was to be 5/6 (27.5p), children 3/- (15p) with 1/- (5p) deposit to be forfeited if members failed to go. There was much enthusiasm for starting a cricket team which was to be financed by a Jumble Sale. That spring all members agreed to plant two tubers of Sharpes express potatoes and send the crop to an institution or hospital. Members were also asked to bring daffodils for the same cause.

In the summer it was announced that Harry Offer, son and grandson of two members, was one of only four children in the country to win the RSPCA Band of Mercy competition styled ‘Animals in our Garden’. Five other W.Is joined Kintbury in July for a meeting at Hungerford Park, home of Mrs. Turner. In September, owing to exceptional weather, the Flower Show schedule was omitted.

Also in September the decision was finally taken to begin Keep Fit Classes. The cost was to be 2/6 (12.5p) for 24 lessons. Unfortunately the start was delayed for at least a week owing to the “International Situation.”

The W.I. was asked to raise funds for the decorating of the Coronation Hall and so it was planned to run two socials, one for the Hall and one for the Cricket Club.

In October ’38, Miss Ada Ward delighted all with her descriptive talk on a ”Day in London”. Her charming personality and ready wit acted as a tonic after the anxiety of the previous week.

The year included the usual travelogue, this time on Spain. Lady Peel spoke on folk songs, Mrs. Goodheart spoke on Fish Cookery, and there was a talk on local history – presumably by local historian Mabel Bowen.

The year ended with particulars being given of a new Pension Scheme, pamphlets explaining which could be obtained from the Post Office.

– Penny Fletcher, October 2023

Our Village Schools in the late 19th century

Today, three of our local villages have village schools. Two of them, Inkpen and Enborne, are still based in their original Victorian buildings just like many other primary schools in West Berkshire. However, you might be surprised to find out that, at the end of the nineteenth century, there were twice that many village schools in our area.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, many towns and villages benefitted from schools established by churches or charitable organisations. However, it was not until Forster’s Education Act of 1870 that local school boards were created with the power to levy rates to finance building and running of so-called National Schools in their areas. Thus universal education became available to all children up to the age of 13.

It would be fascinating to research our village schools through documents in the Berkshire Records Office. For now, however, I decided to begin my research by looking at the 1881 census as by this time those schools opened as a result of Forster’s Act would be well established.

At the time of the 1881 census, the occupant of the Kintbury St Mary’s school house is 25 year old James Humphries, originally from Ditton Marsh, Wiltshire. James is described as a “certificated teacher” meaning he has gained a professional qualification at a teacher training college. His sister, Catherine, 20, who is living with him, is described as “assistant teacher” which might indicate that she trained to teach by learning “on the job” as a pupil teacher which was how the majority of teachers qualified at that time. How Kintbury parents would have viewed this fresh faced young man and his even younger sister, both in positions of authority over the village sons and daughters, we can only imagine!

James and Catherine did not stay in Kintbury for long, or so it seems. In November 1883 the Newbury Weekly News reported on a recent Diocesan Inspection at the school which found it to be, “in very good condition. The children are well taught throughout.” The master at this time was a Mr T. Sadgrove. But he did not stay long either. In May of the following year the NWN carried a report concerning the schoolboy Alfred Sturgess who was charged with stealing 2 shillings and 6 pence from the National School Board ( in other words, from St Mary’s school ), the case being proved by the master who was then W. Garrett Jones.

Perhaps Messrs Humphries, Sadgrove and Garrett Jones all found Kintbury too challenging to stay long, or perhaps they were ambitious and wanted to move on to bigger schools in towns. So far I can find no record of any of them to suggest where they were living when they moved on from Kintbury, or if they even stayed in teaching.

Things were different down the road in Inkpen. In 1881 the occupant of the village school house is 49 year old certified teacher Jesse Collins. Jesse was a retired naval captain originally from East Tilbury, Essex, whose teaching post in 1871 had been in Portsmouth.

Interestingly, Jesse’s wife, Charlotte, is also described on the census as “School mistress”, although at this time women were not – officially – allowed to teach after they had married.

Life in the relatively isolated, rural community of Inkpen must have been very different to life in Portsmouth for the Collinses, although it seems to have suited them as they were still there in 1891. Despite, that is, Jesse having appeared before the local magistrates in 1884, charged with having assaulted one Alfred Abraham, a school boy, and having been fined 5s and 16s 6d costs. Perhaps the experience of his former naval career led Jesse to take this in his stride as he is otherwise involved with the local community and, according to the NWN, with local politics.

If Inkpen was a relatively isolated rural community, then Enborne was more so. Back then as now, the school with its adjoining school house was in an isolated spot in Crockham Heath, on the road up to Wash Common where, in 1881, the school mistress was 58 year old Ann Elizabeth Pears. Ann was an experienced teacher: in 1871 she had been teaching near Salisbury in Wiltshire and in 1861 in Suffolk.

According to a report in the NWN of March 1887, two men broke into the school house when Ann was away from home and stole 10 shillings and a quantity of brandy. This must have been particularly unpleasant for a woman living on her own in an isolated house and might have contributed to Ann’s decision to move on. By the time of the 1891 census, Ann has relocated to Hampshire but not yet retired from teaching. At 68 Ann is head teacher at East Woodhay school.

Today there is no primary school in the village of West Woodhay – by modern standards it would probably be considered too small a community to support its own school. The censuses of 1881, 1891 and 1901 indicate that there were no teachers living in the village in those years which suggests to me that there was not a school or accompanying school house ( the usual Victorian arrangement, common in many local villages.) The evidence suggests that West Woodhay’s children attended East Woodhay school as, in December 1903, the NWN reported that a request had been made for a footbridge to be placed “over the water between East and West Woodhay” as “children went down there on their way to school and got their feet damp.”

However, for fifty years, from about 1903 to 1961, West Woodhay did have its own school, marked on early 20^th century OS maps as being somewhere near the village hall but on the opposite side of the road. Perhaps surprisingly, the NWN does not seem to have covered the opening of the school although the 1911 census shows assistant teacher, Celia Cook, 29, from Walworth, London, living in the school house.

Another local school I have, so far, found out very little about is Christchurch. Built at Kintbury Crossways close to the now demolished church which shared its name, Christchurch School opened in 1870 to relieve crowding at the established school down in Kintbury. Whilst the Reading Mercury reported on the opening, for some reason the more local paper, the NWN, did not.

I can find no record of the head teacher at the time of the school’s opening. However, the NWN of February 1884 reported that complaints had been made that a mistress, Agnes Peacock, had been ill treating the children. Unfortunately, a parent, Mary Ann Nash of Kintbury, had decided to take things into her own hands after Miss Peacock had patted her son on the hand by way of discipline. The teacher reportedly pushed the boy and he fell over. Nash went to the house where Miss Peacock was lodging and struck the teacher on the head with a stick. She was subsequently charged with assault and fined 9 shillings 6 pence with 10 shillings 6 pence costs.

As the smallest village in our benefice, then as now, it is perhaps most surprising that Combe had its own school. Although I can find no trace of when it first opened, the NWN of September 1894 reported that the school in the village had been, “nobly restored” with, “all the necessary requirements”. Local dignitary, Mr A.C.Cole had, “spared no expense” and the village children no longer had to walk to the neighbouring school, 2 or 3 miles distant. The school house furniture was supplied as a gift from Mrs Cole, as was that of the school, “according to government requirements”. Three cheers, then, for the Cole family.

In 1901, the schoolmistress at Combe was 34 year old Elizabeth Dingwall. Born in Chelsea, Elizabeth had been teaching in Fulham in 1891. At Combe, she shared the school house with her sister Isabella, a nurse and, although life the tiny village must have been very different from Chelsea or Fulham, the Dingwall sisters are still there in 1911.

One thing that has surprised me in researching this is that none of the teachers, either masters or mistresses, are local people. Whether this was a deliberate policy or coincidence, it is impossible to say for certain, although the weight of evidence suggests to me that the school boards deliberately chose to appoint people from out of the local area. For those single schoolmistresses, living alone in a village schoolhouse, life must have been very lonely. Whilst we know very little about the lives of Ann Elizabeth Pears, Celia Cook, Agnes Pocock or Elizabeth Dingwall, we do know a bit more about a schoolmistress living and working about 20 miles from here, in Denchworth, formerly North Berkshire, in the 1860s. Mary Hardy had been born near Dorchester in Dorset and trained to teach at the teacher training college in Salisbury so she was a “certified teacher”. Denchworth village school, 80 miles from her home and family, was her first post for which she was paid £40 a year and expected to play the church organ. Mary found the experience of living in Denchworth to be so lonely that she persuaded her parents to allow her younger sister, Kate, still a school pupil herself, to come to Berkshire to live with her.

We know a little more about Mary Hardy than we do about most Victorian village schoolmistresses because her brother, Thomas, was to become the celebrated novelist and so some of her correspondence is preserved in Dorset Museum. But while the names of most of the other women – and men – are mostly forgotten, many of the nineteenth century school houses are still standing. During my time as a supply teacher I was lucky enough to work in many village schools still using their original buildings, though now much adapted and extended. The school house has been, in some instances, sold off but in others the former living accommodation is now used as classrooms, staff rooms or storage. As you walk from late 20^th century extensions back into those Victorian rooms, there is, I think, a distinct change in atmosphere, an awareness that you have entered somewhere that has been in constant use for over 150 years.

Tessa Lock September 2023